Merry Christmas, Feliz Navidad - Then and Now

It's Christmas Eve and here we are in Merida, Yucatan establishing new holiday traditions. We have been busy partially preparing for our small, intimate Christmas dinner planned for tomorrow . This is the first Christmas ever we have spent away from friends and family. All in all, we are handling it fairly well.

We Wish All of Our Family and Friends a Merry Christmas!!!

We baked cookies this morning. I haven't baked cookies, or anything else for that matter at all, since we  moved aboard S/V Cool Change back in 2007. I just could never bring myself to light the propane oven aboard a boat. But, we had one of the most memorable Christmases ever aboard Cool Change with Kate and Bret, Hugh, Ashley, and Maggie, and Kim all aboard with us. We had prepared our entire meal aboard utilizing a crockpot, electric skillet, microwave, and stove top. The weather was a mess but we did our usual eating, drinking, playing music, laughing, opening gifts, and just being grateful that all of us were together.

So many Christmas carols and Christmas cards depict a white Christmas, but never living north of Central Texas, a White Christmas was unheard of in our world. At least it was until 2004. We had flown to Las Vegas and met Kate and Bret there the week before Christmas. With them living in California it was a nice "meeting place". Kim had asked us prior to the trip if we would see snow and we had told her "Unfortunately..no, Darling." We were back home at Cape Carancahua before Christmas. And the strangest thing ever happened. It started snowing Christmas Eve...right on the water...in South Texas! At first we thought it was going to be just a few flurries, but it turned out to be a 13" freak snow phenomenon...real, powdery, snowman-building snow. I remember walking along the waterside and feeling sorry for the brown pelicans out on the piers. They looked so cold and confused. We didn't even care about opening Christmas gifts on Christmas morning. All we wanted to do was play in the snow. It stayed on the ground until the day after Christmas when almost all of it melted away and became a great memory. This is like a once in a century type event.
It was Kim's Christmas wish come true of all time.


Christmas Morning 2004



The One and Only Snowman...Ever!
 

Going further back in time, there was the year of the big Christmas present mix-up. Terry and I still laugh about this one. It was while we were living in Tangerine. We asked the kids' babysitter to put gifts under the tree while we went looking at Christmas lights. It was our way of tricking them since they were on to the whole Christmas gift/Santa thing. The only problem was that Julia didn't know exactly which of the gifts were for Kate and which were for Hugh. She did the best she could in figuring it out and made a "location of gifts" for each of them. Anyway, a music cassette Kate had requested went into Hugh's pile of loot. I think it was Def Leopard. They ended up getting in a tugging match over the cassette (yes, I said cassette). And they fought and fought over that damn cassette.

Terry and I will never forget the year his mom and dad, and my mom and dad all came to the Cape for Christmas. Everybody enjoyed the time spent together so much his mom and dad spent the night as well as Mom and Dad. They all loaded up and went on a road trip and had one heck of a road trip from what Terry said - laughing and joking. Unfortunately, I missed the road trip because of friend Mike's death when I went to be with Debbie.
And there were the big family meals in the Tanglewood house, then later at Cape Carancahua where we got the older generation of aunts and uncles to join us.

Each of us can go back even further to being kids and getting together with grandparents, aunts/uncles and cousins.

I still believe in the spirit of Santa and "Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus" was taped to the side of the refrigerator for years. We each remember midnight masses and have talked about going to church at La Ermita this evening or tomorrow...not sure we will but we can hear mass from here in the house.

So - all of family - we are thinking about you.....Kate, Piper, Ritchie, Hugh, Maggie, Jack, Ashley, Kim, Craig, Rory, Kilo, Mom, Dad, Randy, Bernice, James, Sara, Wesley, Kayla, Tanner, Hayley, Logan, Hayley, Alyson, Kevin, Marcella, Angie, Cole, Gracie, Gary, Sandra, Scott, Dana, Katherine, Gabriel, Leslie, Leo, Sara, Ethan, Joanne, Larry, Gaye Lynn, Larry, Zackery, Paden, Ramsie, Holly, Jason, Britney, Megan, Jacob, Cody, Mika, Justus, Colton, Corrie, and Jacie, Larry Joe, Matney, Katelynn, Karli, Landen, Lexi, Neal, Alline, Joseph, Chelsea, Dillon, Rachel, and  Erin.
Then there is Mom and Dad, Tim, Pat, Kathy, Avery, Candace, and Fernando.

 

We love you all and are thinking about all of you.
And all of our aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends back home too!!!

Our Merida Christmas Tree

As far the new traditions. It includes baking cookies! We received a swell Christmas present from our friends Gaspar and Lupita at the local Cerve Frio and we will be taking a walk over to the CF shortly to pass out homemade cookies and buy a case of cold Sols. Feliz Navidad!

The Eve of Christmas Eve ...aka 12/23

We slept in this morning...maybe too much wine followed by crema de tequilla shots.

But got up feeling rested so we made a walk to the Chedraui to get things we couldn't find yesterday at WalMart. I am beginning to feel the same way about WalMart here as I do in the US....just not a Wal-Mart fan for shopping.
I got a cookie sheet to make cookies this morning...kinda scared to do it because I haven't used a horno in over 5 years!!! We never fired up the oven all the time we lived on Cool Change. Everything is in centigrade, measurements are in kilograms,and the horno only has numbers 1-5 for temperature control....I thought we needed to buy a thermometer. But, when all else fails read the directions and I found out that each setting is a certain C of heat! We'll see how these galletas turn out. If they don't turn out I can blame them on so many things - I haven't made cookies in over 5 years, it was the oven temperature, I had too many kg. of butter, etc., etc.
Later on we walked down to the plaza and then over to the park where Lobo displays his art to give him pictures we had taken and actually had developed...they were of him, Terry and one of the paintings we had purchased. We had previously promised him we would get pictures to him.
We had a long conversation with him...about life, the meaning of success, and what the future holds for him and us.

Gentleman playing Christmas carols on a saw...quite remarkable